1. Field of the Invention
Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention relate generally to detecting network traffic and, more particularly, to relating network traffic using traffic signatures.
2. Description of Related Art
The advent of the global Internet has given users throughout the world the capability to quickly and easily access and retrieve information stored at remote locations. Through the Internet, users may access, via laptop or desktop computers at their home or business, documents stored anywhere in the world. Some Internet users, however, may attempt to use the distributed connectivity of the Internet to engage in illicit network activity. In the case of an Internet service, such as, for example, an advertisement publishing service, in which a server hosts advertisement documents and receives earnings based on a number of times advertisement documents have been accessed, some users may attempt to create multiple accounts so as to appear as multiple actors when accessing documents hosted by such a service and, thus, inflating advertising revenue. Use of these multiple accounts can permit the user to have a significant aggregate effect (for example, generating a great deal of traffic or advertisement earnings) while disguising their traffic as originating from many users. Detection of illicit activity of this type can be difficult, or even impossible, with existing techniques.